Strategic Advice

“You only get one chance to make a first impression!” That’s a comment we hear repeatedly when discussing project scope and timeliness with our clients. However, our experience shows that popular consensus may be misplaced, at least as it refers to the interactive space. Instead, we are finding success more closely related to persistent effort and refinement after launch rather than laborious planning and elaborate launch planning. (Note: we’re talking websites here, not launching rockets with toxic payloads.)

In crafting a good internet presence, a sense of the client’s personality and character come to life. So its understandable that passionate clients (and designers) want to spend much back and forth in perfecting the myriad details. However, the realities of online business don’t always look favorably on those who take their time. For this marketplace, the importance of Getting It Up trumps the desire of Getting It Just So. (more…)

When I first got into the business of building websites (late 90s), I would have to explain to people why their business needed a website. I was typically confronted with reasons and excuses about how their particular business or industry didn’t need a website. Much of my working time was spent on convincing people why they needed a website.

Somewhere along the way, people stopped asking why they needed a website. It’s become common knowledge that any person or organization that is engaging in the business of marketing must have a website. Today, people call me simply because they know they need a website. (more…)

FEED is Razorfish’s annual study charting how technology is changing the way consumers engage with brands. Razorfish is the biggest digital advertising agency in the world. They work with clients like AT&T, Mercedes and Coca-Cola, and so it’s in their best interest to stay on top of how new customers are created online today.

The report is a research paper with both hard data and expert evaluations. But, it’s mostly spelled out in the context of larger multi-national brands. So, we at Juicy Results wanted to extract the trends and insight that we think is most valuable for small businesses. (more…)

I was really glad to find this powerful subhead in a BusinessWeek article this morning in an article titled “Humility and the Successful Startup:”

Every skill required to form a business should be judged on make-or-buy grounds. If you don’t have it, outsource it.

Being part of many startups’ early days—either as a service provider, employee or founder—it’s clear to me that many of the times I’ve failed to generate the results I’ve expected, it has been because I was doing things that I either didn’t like or was not good at. This is not a good use of anyone’s time, especially a founder or high level employee.

The bootstrap mindset is all about efficiency, not just thriftiness. As entreprenuers, we should remember that doing things ourselves, when they could be done by an expert or specialist at a profitable cost, is actually just waste.

If you are spending hours trying to market your website without a plan outlined by someone with experience and expertise in this area, you’re likely wasting your time. Next time you are spending hours researching ad management or search engine optimization, ask yourself if you would get more value for your time if you were instead concentrating on sales, customer service or product development.

If the answer is yes, then outsource it.